Did Hitler ever say "We most close union offices, confiscate their money…"? (And does it matter?)

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike" (attributed to Adolf Hitler).

The above quote gets a lot of traction on the Internet, and I think it's another one of those memes that too few people debunk or even bother to investigate. I've tried, and despite thousands of Internet posts to the contrary, I have never found any real proof that Hitler ever said these particular words. But that doesn't mean they aren't substantially suggestive of what his positions on trade unions were. They are.

American conservative propagandists (such as the famously stupid Breitbartian fame whore, Brooks Bayne) frequently try to claim that Hitler, whom in their ignorance they mislabel a "socialist," couldn't possibly have been anti-union, because, to paraphrase their apocryphal idiocy, "everyone knows socialists are a worker's party." In fact, even really lazy students of history know that the Nazis used the socialist label to sucker workers into thinking they cared about their interests, solely for purposes of using their community organizing outreach apparatus, and intimidate anyone on their membership rosters. The Nazis—and especially their Führer—detested Marxists in general and Communists in particular. And since their power ultimately derived from the rich, slave-labor-loving industrialists (in Germany and the United States), unions were the absolutely last people on their Christmas card list.

Hitler suppressed trade unions (along with Communists and Social Democrats) in early 1933. It was a key part of their rise to power. They raided and destroyed offices, liberated printing presses and other hardware and beat or imprisoned members and especially leaders. The SS and their brownshirt stooges rampaged through every trade union office of the Social Democrats, took control of their newspapers and other publications, and seized almost all of their financial assets.

Except for a few placeholder puppets, most real union officials were either killed or removed to the concentration camps. The net effect was to crush any power that the trade unions had so the Nazi's could use the shell of what remained for their own propaganda purposes.

I believe you are correct, except for one thing: the reduction of salaries. Hitler was very wary of potential unrest among the working class. He firmly believed in the “dagger-in-the-back” myth which blamed Germany’s defeat in the First World War on the communists fomenting the working class into revolution and he was determined to avoid anything similar from happening again. To that end he destroyed the communists and the socialists and dismantled the unions, but he also made sure that the working classes’ material conditions were such that no grounds for unrest would arise.

Hitler avoided putting the German economy on a war footing during the first half of WWII and did not introduce wholesale distribution of primary necessities until 1943 or 1944.

After the German victory over France in 1940 he had a substantial part of the army discharged also to avoid discontent amongst the people and to allow them to go back to work to increase productivity and thereby the living standards of the people.

All this to make sure people’s material comforts were seen to as much as possible, not out of concern for the people, but in order to keep them quiet.